Category: 2017

Jallicia Jolly

PhD ’20, American Culture

In the fourth decade of the global HIV pandemic, the U.S. faces a striking phenomenon: growing HIV rates among Black women in inner-city communities. In Detroit, a city with the highest concentrated poverty rates of 25 largest metropolitan areas, they accounted for 91% of all female HIV cases in 2012, which is over 4 times the national average (CDC 2013). HIV has important gender, sexual, and cultural dimensions that must be understood, as both the risk of contracting HIV and the consequences of being infected are different among women. To conduct this project, I will partner with Gospel Against AIDS (GAA) – the only faith-based HIV prevention educational and HIV testing organization in Michigan which provides HIV testing and treatment, spiritual care and counseling for people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. GAA’s incorporation of a groundbreaking spiritual component provides another scientifically acknowledged asset in supporting immune and mental health. This multi-sited investigation will study the socioeconomic and sexual experiences of Black women in three high-risk HIV communities in Detroit: Eastside, Highland Park, and Brightmoor. I will unearth the deeper intra-gender and intra-racial differences in: a) understandings of intimacy, risk, and vulnerability b) perceptions of and access to support and health services, and c) beliefs about health and wellness. This mixed-method study will employ ethnography (participant observation and semi-structured interviews), sexual health surveys, and PLACE – a rapid-assessment methodology that uses a systematic venue-based sampling approach to improve HIV/AIDS prevention programming in places transmission is likely to occur (Gomez et al 2009).

Library Mentor: Judy Smith

Amina Hussein

PhD ’20, Applied Physics

While women are increasingly pursuing professions in “non-traditional” workspaces – whether academic, industrial, or corporate – their identities can often be represented as one-dimensional and monolithic. “Women in STEM.” “Women in Male-Dominated Fields.” Watching a friend discuss her doctoral research on material culture in the Victorian period, while applying makeup with care and attention, inspired me to pursue a three-dimensional exploration into the personal lives of professional women. The goal of this work is to amplify the voice of the individual women and to give each woman control over her own narrative. We will produce a series of short videos featuring women from a diversity of fields (Science and Arts, as well as Engineering and Business) discussing their work while doing an activity outside of that environment: one that is personal and representative of a passion outside of their professional life. This work will showcase the accomplishments and multifaceted interests of individual women in their own voices. We want to show not only that these women exist, but also that they do not conform to any one stereotype. We plan to recruit self-identified women in the Ann Arbor/Detroit area to appear in the videos, which will be archived on a website available to the public. A selection of 5-10 videos will be exhibited on campus. We will collaborate with Prof. Aileen Huang-Saad, Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering, Entrepreneurship and Engineering Education, for guidance on the project. As well, we will discuss themes with Prof. Candace Moore in the Departments of Screen Arts & Cultures and Women’s Studies.

Library Mentor: Justin Schell

Charity Hoffman

PhD ’20, American Culture

Espwa Berlancia is a malnutrition clinic in a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Haiti’s persistent childcare crisis has been exacerbated in recent years by natural disasters. Espwa Berlancia is one of only four in-patient malnutrition clinics in the country, a last buffer against conditions that otherwise force parents of severely malnourished infants and toddlers to turn their children over to orphanages, lest they die of illness or starvation. The clinic helps nurse those babies back to health with the aim that they can be returned to their families. Our project hopes to achieve the following: development of parent education curriculum (to be written in English and translated into Haitian Creole), supply printing of materials for parents who participate in education program, assist in setting up the physical space for the parent education center in Petionville, Haiti, and help with initial employment of Haitian staff for parent education center, including a health and nutrition educator, a business instructor, and agricultural instructor. You can read more about the malnutrition clinic here: http://www.espwaberlancia.org/ And about the new parent education program here: http://www.espwaberlancia.org/sustainability-program.html

Library Mentor: Tyler Ni

Vivienne Hazzard

PhD ’19, Nutritional Sciences/Health Behavior and Health Education

The study seeks to advance understanding of disordered eating in female and male collegiate athletes. Additionally, the proposed study aims to validate an eating disorder screening tool that can be used for female and male collegiate athletes. This project allows for the University of Michigan School of Public Health to collaborate with the Eastern Michigan University Athletic Department and will culminate in written papers in peer-reviewed journals to share the findings. Overall, the aims of the proposed project are: 1. To validate the Eastern Michigan University eating disorder screening tool by conducting principal component analysis, examining internal consistency of the questions loading onto the same factors, and using the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire as the existing criterion to compare the new tool against. 2. To investigate longitudinal trends in eating disorder risk among male and female athletes from Freshman to Senior year. 3. To look cross-sectionally and prospectively at eating disorder scores by weight categories, specifically “normal” weight athletes versus underweight athletes versus overweight/obese athletes. 4. To examine the cross- sectional and prospective associations between eating disorder screening score and menstrual regularity in female athletes.

Library Mentor: Carol Shannon

Stephanie Gerretsen

PhD ’18, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning

In collaboration with São Paulo-based architecture firm, Raddar, and Union of Residents and Commerce of Paraisópolis (UMCP), Stephanie and Alexis are investigating land use and environmental laws, legal interventions, urban governance practices, and grassroots strategies affiliated with environmental risk as it relates to flooding and water contamination in Latin American informal settlements. The primary outcome for this project is to develop implementation strategies for a Socio-Environmental Risk Management Plan that is focused on mitigating the effects of environmental hazards for residents living in Paraisópolis, an upgraded informal settlement located within an upscale region of the city of São Paulo. Like most periphery areas in Latin America, these zones have a disproportionate number of informal and illegally subdivided settlements as compared to the city center (Buddsand Teixeira, 2005). Furthermore, environmental hazards are particularly damaging in informal areas because of unstable construction in areas of high environmental vulnerability, including riparian banks, drainage zones, and steep slopes where landslides are most likely to occur (Jacobi et al., 2015). The confluence of housing informality, precarious water infrastructure, and uneven governmental responses have produced contestations over how to better serve these residents. These debates have intensified in light of climate change and its catalyzing effect on the frequency of extreme weather events.

Library Mentor: Lori Tschirhart

Spencer Garrison

PhD ’19, Sociology

Making sense of relationship status is critically important not only to the organization of one’s intimate relationships, but also to the organization of general social life. Within the contemporary U.S., singlehood has been presented as a dysfunctional, socially undesirable alternative to long-term partnership; this tendency to stigmatize singles makes singlehood a source of social risk. To further complicate the issue, the deinstitutionalization of marriage and the diffusion of relationship forms historically associated with younger adults (such as polyamory and “living apart together” relationships) into older age cohorts have afforded adult women new opportunities to choose among relationship configurations other than marriage or singlehood: opportunities that introduce as many new constraints as they do possibilities. Today’s aging singles must navigate a matrix of intimate alternatives, each with their own promises and dangers. We conducted a total of 56 in-depth interviews with Black and white women between the ages of 35 and 55, hoping to explore how differing interpretations of the disadvantages and opportunities associated with singlehood may work to shape women’s pursuit of new romantic and sexual partners. We argue that different women arrive at different understandings of what it means to be “single” at mid-adulthood, and that these understandings work to influence long-term ideals and aspirations.

Library Mentor: Hailey Mooney

Sena Duran

BA ’18, Women’s Studies, Middle Eastern North African Studies, Arab and Muslim American Studies

While qualitative research concerning Muslim Americans has been a major facet in the fields of racial, ethnic, and religious studies, the diverse identities that exist within the Muslim American community have been underrepresented. Their nuanced and intersectional experiences as Muslim Americans are critical realities that must be addressed to further research and maintain activism and safety, both in the University of Michigan campus and beyond. Research concerning the effects of gender and sexual orientation on the experiences and identifications of Muslims in America can be expanded. In this project, I intend to do so by bringing to light the experiences of LGBTQ identified Muslims and Muslim women. Through conducting confidential surveys and interviews, I hope to give participants the opportunity to discuss their lived realities as women and/or LGBTQ individuals as they coexist with their Muslim American identities. I will take inspiration from identity models such as Bucher’s Identity Integration and the intersectional feminist concepts. This project will serve two major purposes: first, the collection of anecdotes will let me focus on the life stories of these individuals. Not only will this serve the underrepresented communities, but it will also aid research in intersectional feminist, ethno-religious, and Muslim American studies. Second, I hope to inspire a larger conversation about the realities of LGBTQ Muslims, as current research about this subject is limited. For resources to literature and participants, I hope to collaborate with the departments of Women’s Studies and Arab and Muslim American studies, as well as staff in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Communications.

Library Mentor: Meredith Kahn